q^ck: - to 

religion 




I " " 



RSffS 



KLESTST 



■«■•.•:•'••■'• 



' "'■"' f ' r '' : 

WtKmSm 

'-■•■•••".'.'■'■ 









■**ag *." m w rn maam — — — — 




Class. 



Book 



GopightN - 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




■ I sw < - 





















^^■^v»^ 



BACK TO RELIGION 



/ 



BACK TO 
RELIGION 



BY 
RUDOLF EUCKEN 

UNIVERSITY OF JENA 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



BL4S 



COPYRIGHT, 1912 
BY LUTHER H . CARY 



THE •PLIMPTON. PRESS 
[W'D» Ol 

NORWOOD'MASS'U'S'A 



CCU327374 



N 






BACK TO RELIGION 



Oc 



e 



BACK TO RELIGION 



HE is but a superficial observer 
of the times who can think 
that the movement of life today is 
altogether against religion, and that 
only the denial of religion has the 
spirit of the age with it. 

For, certain as it is that blatant 
denial still holds the public ear and 
is more and more permeating the 
masses, yet in the work of the intel- 
lect, and likewise in the depths of 
men's souls, the case is different. 
Here, with ever greater vigor, is 
springing up the feeling that reli- 
gion is indispensable, the yearning 
for religion. What is understood by 
religion is often anything but clear, 
and often very different from the 
traditional forms of religion ; but the 
demand is unmistakable for more 
depth of life and for the establish- 
7 



8 BACK TO RELIGION 

ment of profounder inner connections 
than our visible existence affords. In 
the spiritual life of the present day, 
molecular transformations are tak- 
ing place, inconspicuous at first but 
constantly increasing, which will 
eventually burst upon our view, and 
which will necessarily provoke essen- 
tial changes in the entire condition 
of life. Today this movement is 
still an undercurrent, and on the 
surface the tide flows in the opposite 
direction. But more and more the 
undercurrent is rising to the surface, 
and unless every indication fails, it 
will soon come into control. 

The most fundamental reason for 
this tendency may be indicated by a 
single sentence. It is caused by the 
increasing dissatisfaction with mod- 
ern civilization, or at least with those 
aspects of civilization which now oc- 
cupy the surface of life. All the 
splendor of the external successes of 
civilization cannot hide the fact 
that it does not satisfy the whole 
man with his inner needs, and that 



BACK TO RELIGION 9 

the amelioration of the world around 
us which it has accomplished does 
not compensate for the inner empti- 
ness of its excessive concentration 
of effort on the visible world, its 
secularization of life. 

We moderns have set ourselves 
at work with all our might, have 
acquired technical perfection, have 
combined isolated achievements into 
great systems. By the increased 
efficiency of our labor we have in- 
creasingly subdued the world, and 
at the same time have imposed 
upon human society a far more 
rational form. But, while we have 
given every care and effort to the 
means and conditions of life, we have 
exposed ourselves to the risk of los- 
ing life itself, and while performing 
astounding external feats, inwardly 
we have become smaller and smaller. 
Our work has separated itself from 
our souls, and it now reacts over- 
masteringly upon them, threaten- 
ing to absorb them utterly. Our 
own creations have become our mas- 



IO BACK TO RELIGION 

ters and oppressors. Moreover, as 
the division of labor increases, work 
constantly becomes more special- 
ized and engages an ever smaller 
part of each individual soul; the 
whole man comes less and less to 
activity, and we lose any superior 
unity of our nature. Thus more 
and more we become mere parts 
of a civilization-machine. 

The dangers thus arising were not 
felt to be so serious a menace, so 
long as religion and a culture con- 
trolled by ideals kept before men's 
minds another conception of life. 
But now that these are weakened 
and repressed, this trend toward 
the visible world meets less and less 
resistance. Yet it is true that as 
a result of the same process the ac- 
companying loss is at least clearly 
seen and keenly felt. The victory 
itself is thus calling forth a counter- 
movement, and the outer triumph, 
by letting us plainly discern the 
limits of human power, is being 
transformed into an inner defeat. 



BACK TO RELIGION II 

An independence once gained for 
the spiritual life can be temporarily 
obscured, but not permanently de- 
stroyed. At one and the same mo- 
ment the craving that life should 
have more soul and depth is express- 
ing itself with elemental power, and, 
on the other hand, it is becoming 
clear that, if the All is without soul 
and no new spiritual world stands 
open before us, we humans, too, can 
have no souls. The result is that 
we are again driven into the path of 
religion, since without religion life 
cannot find the longed-for depth. 

This craving for soul is accom- 
panied by a craving for continuance 
and eternity. 

Modernity has abandoned reli- 
gion's mode of conceiving life and 
the world sub specie aeternitatis, has 
left eternity colorless and empty, in 
its uncurbed desire to plunge full 
into the current of the time, to up- 
lift conditions here, and from this 
world to derive all its forces. In all 
this a special importance has at- 



12 BACK TO RELIGION 

tached to the idea of development. 
Instead of thinking their position 
to be fixed and unshakable by the 
appointment of a higher power, be 
it God or fate, men have come to 
think of our life as still in flux, and 
its condition as susceptible of meas- 
ureless improvement; above all the 
immaturity and all the losses of the 
present has arisen the confident hope 
of a better and ever better future. 
Such a conviction has led men to 
devote endeavor entirely to the liv- 
ing present and carefully to ad- 
just effort to the existing stage of 
evolution. That contributes great 
freshness and mobility to life; all 
rigidity is dispelled, all magnitudes 
become fluid, infinite increase mul- 
tiplies the abundant forms. 

Without in any wise attacking or 
disparaging all this, one's own expe- 
rience of life yet makes it more and 
more clear that this trend has its 
dangers and limitations. To yield 
to the tendency of the times seemed 
at first to bring clear gain, for a 



BACK TO RELIGION 13 

group of persistent convictions still 
maintained themselves and supplied 
to the movement a counterbalancing 
repose. More and more, however, 
the movement drew into itself these 
survivals; more and more exclu- 
sively it mastered all life. It con- 
stantly became more swift, more 
hurried, more agitated; the changes 
followed faster and faster, one mo- 
ment crowded on another, and the 
present was reduced to a passing 
instant. But in this process it has 
become apparent that this passion- 
ate forward striving leaves no room 
for true life. And, further, all cour- 
age must needs perish, so soon as we 
are forced to the conviction that 
everything which we today revere 
as true, good, beautiful, is subject 
to change and may tomorrow be- 
come unstable, that what is today 
acclaimed "modern" may tomorrow 
be cast aside as obsolete. He who 
unreflectingly lives merely for the 
moment may in all seriousness look 
upon that moment as the acme of 



14 BACK TO RELIGION 

the whole; but he who looks a little 
farther cannot doubt that it will be 
no better with us than with those 
who went before us, and that the 
saying still holds which according 
to Indian doctrines the spirits of 
the dead cry to the living : " We were 
what you are; you shall be what 
we are." In fine, if life is all strung 
on the thin thread of successive 
moments, each crowding back its 
predecessor, so that when the mo- 
ment vanishes all action at once 
sinks again into the abyss of nothing- 
ness, then, in spite of all the exciting 
activity of the moment, life becomes 
a mere shadow. 

If only we were quite sure that 
all our pains and care and haste 
were bringing about progress for 
the whole of human life ! But that, 
again, we are not. True, we are 
constantly advancing in exact sci- 
ence, as we are in the technical mas- 
tery of our environment; we are 
compelling the elements into our 
service ; we are freeing our existence 



BACK TO RELIGION l£ 

from pain and enriching it with 
pleasure. But are we by all that 
winning a closer connection with the 
depths of reality? Are we growing 
in spiritual power as in ethical sen- 
timent? Are we becoming greater 
and nobler men? As life gains in 
pleasure, do our inner contentment 
and true happiness increase in due 
proportion? In truth, we are grow- 
ing only in our relations to the world 
outside, not in the essence of our 
being; and hence the question is 
not to be evaded, whether the un- 
speakable toil of modern civilization 
is worth while. We work and work, 
and know not to what end; for in 
giving up eternity we have also lost 
every inner bond of the ages and 
all power of comprehensive view. 
Without a guiding star we drift on 
the waves of the time. 

As soon as this becomes a fact of 
clear consciousness and individual 
experience, either all courage to live 
must collapse or we must again 
discover within our domain, and 



l6 BACK TO RELIGION 

resuscitate, something durable, some- 
thing eternal, to give us support 
against the flight of the moments 
and to permit us to work for durable 
aims. Otherwise, our life has no 
sense and no value. That a longing 
for such an eternity, for a superi- 
ority to mere movement, pervades 
our time, is revealed by many signs. 
But such a craving leads, if not 
directly to religion, yet near to reli- 
gion, as the chief representative of 
eternal truth. 

Again, men crave more love and 
more solidarity in the human race 
than modern civilization affords, and 
that, too, is driving men to religion. 
Christianity not only had made 
love the kernel of religion, but also, 
starting from a Kingdom of God, it 
had established an inner human soli- 
darity and created an organization 
on a spiritual foundation. For the 
modern age, however, so far as it 
went its own way, other aims came 
to the front. The chief thing came 
to be the individual, his emanci- 



BACK TO RELIGION 1J 

pation from all hindrances, the de- 
velopment of all his powers, their 
unlimited enhancement. In all de- 
partments of life the independent 
development of the individual is a 
chief trait of the modern world; 
each of the great civilized nations 
in its own way has contributed to 
it, according as each has found its 
high level in art and literature, in 
religion, or in political and social 
life. Now for a time this individ- 
ualism did not come into collision 
with the old ideals, for the individ- 
ual found the totality of a spiritual 
world present within him, so that 
each one in his proper station could 
make it his chief task to stamp his 
own peculiar form on this inner 
world and to render it his peculiar 
service. But the situation altered 
as soon as that world of the spirit 
faded and disappeared. With it 
vanished everything that inwardly 
united individuals and bound their 
souls together. One individual be- 
came inwardly indifferent to another, 



l8 BACK TO RELIGION 

and the way was opened for a man 
to make his highest aim his own 
personal advancement and utmost 
selfish gain, in total unconcern for 
any one else. 

The same principles which govern 
individual conduct are extended to 
social groups and entire nations; 
self-interest is the single rule of ac- 
tion, the moral solidarity of mankind 
is relaxed and dissolved. The dan- 
ger is imminent that the end may be 
a war of all against all {helium om- 
nium contra omnes). Undoubtedly 
the resulting rivalry and strife has 
effected much that is great; it has 
given life a thorough shaking up, and 
banished all idle repose. And on 
this new foundation cohesive forces 
are by no means lacking. Such a 
force in particular is Work, which 
with its growth to great combina- 
tions perfects organization, assigns 
to each single element a definite 
part, and binds them all firmly to- 
gether. But such gearing together of 
performances by no means amounts 



BACK TO RELIGION 19 

to harmony of sentiment; if it did, 
the antinomies of the social question 
and our economic conflicts would be 
impossible. In truth, combination 
in work does not prevent wide diver- 
gence of conviction and opinion, or 
even mutual hatred and strife. Sects 
and parties are increasing; common 
estimates and ideals keep slipping 
away from us; we understand one 
another less and less, and are falling 
deeper and deeper into a confused 
Babel of tongues. Even voluntary 
association, that form of human 
unity peculiar to modern times, the 
free union of many individuals, 
unites more in accomplishment than 
in disposition, brings men together 
outwardly rather than inwardly. 
Thus, among the monstrous confu- 
sions of the present time the demand 
for stable connections grows insis- 
tent, connections which shall take 
concern both for the common weal 
and for the individual. If, however, 
this demand plants itself wholly on 
the basis of the visible world and 



20 BACK TO RELIGION 

denies everything invisible, it must 
inevitably assume the form of a harsh 
oppression and compulsion, for it 
can produce its effect not through 
conviction but solely through force. 
In the social-democratic movement 
of the present such a danger already 
shows itself in full distinctness. But 
while the modern man struggles 
with all his soul against such a com- 
pulsion, a solution of the entangle- 
ment is to be sought in no other 
direction than that of a recovery 
of inner human bonds and of re- 
course to an inner world, common to 
all, of convictions, faith, ideals. We 
need to upbuild humanity from 
within, and this cannot be done 
without a profound deepening of 
life, and this in turn is not possible 
without religion. 

The fact that today, with the 
greatest abundance of external 
points of contact, we are internally 
getting farther and farther apart, 
necessarily leads to inner isolation. 
Amid the stupendous driving-gear 



BACK TO RELIGION 21 

the individual sees himself left to 
his own resources and completely 
indifferent to everyone else. Such 
isolation is painful, yes, unbearable, 
especially for finer natures. All the 
fulness of human activity, highly as 
it is to be prized, cannot make good 
the lack of inner union and essential 
love. It affords no sufficient coun- 
terweight for the self-seclusion of 
man in his special circle of inter- 
ests, for the preponderance of selfish- 
ness. Yet this selfishness, which 
separates all from all, turns out to 
be too narrow for the man himself; 
irresistibly a longing arises for a 
greater harmony of our spirits and 
for a value for each individual that 
shall transcend himself. But how 
could such a longing push its way to 
victory against the indifference of 
nature and the corrupt doings of 
men, unless a kingdom of love, a 
world of love, come to man and lend 
him a value? But that is exactly 
what religion represented, and what 
it brought to mankind. 



22 BACK TO RELIGION 

Soul, eternity, love, — these are 
not brought to us quickly and pain- 
lessly by the world about us; they 
require an inner elevation, they de- 
mand a new world. And beyond 
these individual aspects doubts are 
also awakened and transformations 
made necessary by the totality of 
human nature. It was a main point 
of religion, especially of the Chris- 
tian religion, not to accept and 
recognize man as experience pre- 
sents him, but to require of him a 
complete transformation, an inner 
re-birth. The modern age has more 
confidence in man, it awakens in 
him the consciousness of strength 
more than of weakness, it summons 
him to the full development of all 
his slumbering powers. And in fact 
it has been shown that man is capa- 
ble of far more than he used to be 
given credit for, that he can actively 
put his hand to the world, and suc- 
cessfully strive to realize the rational 
and rationalize the real. While, 
however, man in the past thought 



BACK TO RELIGION 23 

highly of himself and bravely under- 
took high things, he formerly felt 
himself to be still living in the spir- 
itual associations which he had in- 
herited, as member of a Kingdom of 
God or as sharer in a world of rea- 
son; and this consciousness disci- 
plined and enlarged his power. But 
these associations have gradually 
vanished ; the tendency toward man 
has gradually passed into a rude 
opposition to any superhuman world, 
and constantly takes a more hostile 
attitude toward religion and toward 
any visible order. Characteristic of 
this is the well-known saying of Lud- 
wig Feuerbach: "God was my first, 
reason my second, man my third and 
last thought." In contrast to such 
a conception of man, which limits 
him to himself alone, the saying of 
Hegel in his Philosophy of History 
has its truth: "The consequence of 
putting man into the highest place 
is that he holds himself in no esteem. 
For only with the consciousness 
that a higher being exists does man 



24 BACK TO RELIGION 

attain a standpoint which allows him 
true esteem." 

It cannot be denied that by giving 
up all connection with an invisible 
world and by complete limitation 
to visible existence man has been 
growing smaller. First of all, his 
place in the sum of reality has been 
reduced. He is now a mere bit of 
nature, and cannot claim a superior 
position and a peculiar work. In 
contrast to the enormously expanded 
space and time which nature has 
opened to modern research, the 
whole human circle is shrinking into 
tiny littleness. Rightly did William 
James emphasize the fact that for 
one hundred and fifty years progress 
seems to have meant nothing but a 
continual magnifying of the material 
world and a steady diminution of 
the importance of man. 

And not only has the external posi- 
tion of man grown worse, he has 
also retrograded internally. When 
man is limited to sensuous existence, 
he loses all motive and all capacity 



BACK TO RELIGION 25 

to raise substantially his spiritual 
level and to counteract with any 
vigor the petty, low, self-centred 
part of his own being. He has to 
accept what he finds in himself, and 
exclusively follow the impulses awak- 
ened in him by nature; all resist- 
ance to them necessarily seems folly. 
That was endurable while an opti- 
mistic point of view glorified man, 
and lent him greatness and dignity 
in his own eyes; it becomes intoler- 
able as soon as a more candid con- 
sideration causes us to discern and 
recognize the limitations and de- 
fects of man, understood as a mere 
natural being. And it cannot be 
denied that the experiences of mod- 
ern life have given decisive prepon- 
derance to this unfavorable estimate. 
Whereas the eighteenth century 
could not exert itself enough to 
exalt the dignity and greatness of 
man {la grandeur de Fhomme), we 
of today, when we picture man 
to ourselves, are far more inclined 
to think of what is petty, low, 



26 BACK TO RELIGION 

self-centred, the " all- too-human " 
(Nietzsche). And since we do not 
intend to yield without a struggle 
to this humiliation, we are develop- 
ing a zealous endeavor to elevate 
man of himself, in his own sphere. 
Some hope to attain this by uniting 
individuals into great masses and 
considering those masses as the 
bearers of reason, in agreement with 
the doctrine set up by Aristotle of 
the accumulation of reason in the 
mass; such have a firm belief in 
the reason of the multitude. In 
exactly the opposite direction, others 
wish to exalt single eminent individ- 
uals as high as possible above the 
masses and to make them the centre 
of gravity of intellectual creation. 
Thus the former through aggrega- 
tion, the latter through isolation, 
hope to be able to make more out of 
man. But, whatever relative jus- 
tification these two tendencies may 
have, they do not reach the main 
goal. For by no readjustment 
within the human circle can great- 



BACK TO RELIGION 2J 

ness be given to man, if human na- 
ture is not capable of elevation from 
within, if man is a mere natural 
being. So we continue to press on 
to a mere human culture and civil- 
ization; we see through its inade- 
quacy, and yet cannot emancipate 
ourselves from it or lift ourselves 
above it; we can neither discover 
new aims nor develop new powers 
other than those which it supplies. 
The fact, however, that, despite the 
vast amount of earnest work and 
the restless movement of today, we 
yet lack a satisfying aim for this 
work, an aim that ennobles and in- 
spires the work itself, — that fact 
makes the present state of civili- 
zation absolutely intolerable. Man 
can bear much hindrance and hurt 
and not lose his courage; but he 
cannot endure to have his whole 
life aimless and meaningless. Just 
because our life is ever growing more 
intense and more laborious, we must 
unconditionally demand that it be 
given an aim and a meaning. 



28 BACK TO RELIGION 

Therefore in all deeper souls today- 
is stirring a demand for an inner 
uplift of human nature, for a new 
idealism. And this demand will nec- 
essarily have to seek an alliance 
with religion. No matter how many 
opponents religion may still encoun- 
ter, nevertheless, stronger than all 
opponents, stronger even than all 
intellectual difficulties, is the neces- 
sity of the spiritual self-preservation 
of humanity and of man. Out of 
the very resistance to the menace of 
annihilation will proceed elemental 
forces, — which are the strongest 
thing in the world. 

Thus, though it be through a 
course of hard fights and radical up- 
heavals (as history indirectly tends 
to prove), religion will surely come 
to new ascendency. But the re- 
turn to religion by no means signifies 
a return to the old forms of religion. 
Through modern culture too much in 
the condition of life has been changed 
for us to resume these forms un- 
changed. Religion will win back 



BACK TO RELIGION 29 

men's souls so much the sooner, the 
more energetically it harks back to 
its original sources, the more sharply 
it separates the temporal and the 
eternal in their own spheres, and so 
brings the eternal to new effective- 
ness and sets it in close and fruitful 
relation to the real needs of the pres- 
ent. The superiority of the eter- 
nal consists not in that it persists 
unchanged within time, but in that 
it can enter all times without los- 
ing itself in them, and from them 
all can elicit that particular portion 
of truth which their endeavor holds. 
"The old that ages, he must let 
go, who would hold fast the old 
that ages not" (Runeberg). 

The fundamental mood of man- 
kind today is essentially the reverse 
of what it was at the beginning of 
the modern period. At that time 
the freshness of new vital power 
lent a rose-colored hue to all reality, 
and it was possible to hope that an 
immanent culture would bring about 
the complete satisfaction of all man's 



30 BACK TO RELIGION 

spiritual needs. The experiences of 
the period have shown man his 
limitations ; great complications 
have arisen, much unreason has be- 
come apparent in our circumstances, 
our ambition has encountered greater 
and greater obstacles. But the rec- 
ognition of so much unreason in 
our world forces us to the following 
alternative: either we declare our- 
selves powerless against unreason, 
— then all the courage and strength 
of life must collapse and we suc- 
cumb to pessimism; or, on the other 
hand, wrestling manfully, we gain a 
connection with an invisible world 
and the depths of reality, draw 
thence new power of life, and take 
up with new courage the fight 
against all unreason. That course 
will result in a well-founded and 
serious optimism, radically different 
from the superficial optimism of the 
market-place. The false optimism 
ignores complication and unreason, 
and hence inevitably loses all depth 
of life; the true optimism knows and 



BACK TO RELIGION 31 

appreciates these, but is not warped 
and deterred by them. It possesses 
a resource superior to every hin- 
drance, and from opposition only 
gains new might and courage. I 
should like to think that such a 
genuine and well-founded optimism 
corresponds to the intrinsic nature 
of the American people. But with- 
out Religion genuine optimism is 
impossible. 



f\b fLl 



OCT 18 1912 



' HItoHSII ■'.:'■■■/:■■■" M ' -.' '■■:'■■ ■ ■. 









lair 



•'•""■.••■■' 






Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Dec. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



"■ : - ' '■ * 



>'•'■-'■-'■■'•■■ 

-..'■••-■■•--•■ 
•'••••■■••-. •■■■>.«'. •- 



'•'.'■'"* 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




013 650 921 4 






^H 



"■' ' Hi 



